Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2001-10-23-Speech-2-210"
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"en.20011023.8.2-210"2
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".
Mr President, I would firstly like to thank Parliament for its willingness to adopt a report on this special instrument within the Union’s Northern Dimension. This will provide a Community guarantee for EIB loans, to a value of EUR 100 million, for the purposes of environmental projects in Russia, as you have pointed out.
As you know, this decision was adopted in a very specific way. This is the first time that financial operations in Russia have been accepted and the operation is not only of interest to Russia but also to the bordering Union countries. The Commission had proposed the 65% guarantee normally considered for this type of operation laid down in the general mandate of the European Investment Bank. However, we know that the Council, for a series of reasons relating to the unique nature of this operation and the need for greater transparency, suggested that in this case a special Community guarantee of 100% was required.
The urgency of the use of resources this year has led the Commission to accept this 100%. I do not exactly know the procedural problems which have led to the information reaching Parliament excessively late, but, according to my information, the Council informed Parliament on 20 September of the amendments under consideration, on 12 October the Belgian Presidency explained the changes in greater detail and, on the same day, the Commission sent the Committee on Budgets information on the reasons why we were accepting the Council’s amendments. With the unanimous decision of the Council and with the Commission’s acceptance, there was no need for the Commission to present a new proposal.
We believe that it is urgent to approve this decision during 2001 for the same reasons you have raised. A delay until 2002 would clearly hinder funding given the narrow margin for manoeuvre we have for next year. However, this decision is not going to affect any other type of operation. In his report, Mr Seppänen made references to other fundings: the Turkish case is the most obvious, coming from the 2000 contributions. Actions in 2000 and 2001 have already been financed and problems of this nature do not arise.
However, another longer-term problem does arise: how are we going to handle the funding capacity of the European Investment Bank within our lending mechanism? Mr Färm also asked what we intended to do as a Commission. I wanted to tell you firstly that the Commission is grateful to Parliament for raising this problem of the limited capacity for indebtedness that we have within the mechanism of the Guarantee Fund. The Commission has already raised this problem in the Council and also here in Parliament on various occasions, and we believe that, if there are new initiatives in the context of 2002, current problems will become more serious and it will be essential to take certain decisions.
The Commission is currently weighing up various options and we intend to approve an initiative relatively soon by means of a Communication which we will send to the Council and to Parliament. I cannot respond to Mr Färm by indicating which option we are considering at the moment but I can point out that in the past we proposed a reduction in the level of coverage from 65% to 60%. This could be one of the instruments, like any other which may be necessary, for creating a greater margin for manoeuvre in future actions. This is what I can tell you at the moment and I would like to thank you for your cooperation in the debate on this report."@en1
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